Winner Takes All
by lioness7
Summary: Frank and Joe fly to Melbourne, Australia to investigate a series of incidents involving Arcadia, the horse expected to win the upcoming Melbourne Cup. Someone doesn't want him to win, and will do anything to stop him. *Casefiles style* Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

"Frank! Wake up, we're about to land! You're going to miss the best part!" Joe Hardy exclaimed, as he repeatedly poked his older brother on the arm.

Frank opened his eyes and glared at his brother. "I AM awake," he muttered grumpily. "It's been impossible to sleep with you elbowing me in my ribcage every five minutes."

"I've been asleep for the whole flight, I haven't touched you," Joe retorted.

"Yeah well, you kept shifting in your chair and elbowing me," Frank replied. "I haven't slept for the last fifteen hours."

A guilty expression came over Joe's face. "Really? I'm sorry, I didn't even realise," he said apologetically.

Frank sighed. "I'm sorry too Joe, I shouldn't have snapped at you. It wasn't your fault. I'm just really tired from the long flight."

Joe was about to say something, but he was interrupted by the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. In approximately ten minutes, we're going to commence our decent into Melbourne Airport, Australia. Conditions are clear and the ground temperature is a warm twenty-seven degrees celsius. The local time is 1:15pm. Passengers are requested to fasten their seatbelts and return all trays to their upright positions. Passengers continuing on to Sydney are to remain on board, and all other passengers must disembark and proceed through customs. On behalf of all of the flight crew, I'd like to thank you for flying with QANTAS and we hope to see you again."

"At least we'll be at the hotel soon, you'll be able to get some sleep there," Joe said sympathetically. He gazed outside at the scenery, as the plane began its rapid descent. "This is so awesome, I can't wait to see what Australia is like!"

Frank found his bad mood evaporating, and he smiled at his younger brother's enthusiasm. "Yeah, me too. I've always wanted to come here. Besides, while you were sleeping, I had a chance to look over the case brief and familiarise myself with the situation."

"So what's this case all about then?" Joe asked.

"I'll tell you all about it when we get to the hotel," Frank replied. "There are too many people around right now, and some of this information is pretty sensitive."

Joe nodded. "Sure, sounds good. But tell me after we get some food, I'm starving!"

Frank smirked. "The plane food was actually pretty good, but you looked so peaceful, I didn't want to wake you up..."

Now it was Joe's turn to glare at Frank. "Thanks a lot, you know I love that orange juice that comes in the little plastic cups!"

* * *

"Have you got your passport and customs declaration?" Frank asked.

"Somewhere, I had it earlier," Joe replied, frantically searching through his carry-on bag. "Ah, victory!" he exclaimed, as he pulled out the battered looking form and his passport.

"You don't have anything to declare, do you? Australia is notoriously strict when it comes to bringing particular items into the country," explained Frank.

"Frank, I'm not a novice. How many international trips have we taken together? I know the drill," Joe said. He flipped his passport open to his picture and held it in front of Frank's face. "Besides, who wouldn't trust a face like this?"

Frank rolled his eyes. "Ok then Joe, if you're sure."

The two brothers queued to pass through the security scanner. The line was huge, and only two people were processing the incoming passengers. Joe started to fidget and he glanced around desperately. "There has to be a place where we can get some food," he whined. "I'm a growing boy!"

"Chill out Joe, it's a big line but they're working pretty quickly," Frank replied. He raised an eyebrow as a muscular man with a shaved head approached him and Joe.

The man stopped in front of Joe, and placed a solid hand on his shoulder. "Good afternoon sir, my name is Officer Daniel Night and I work the Security division of Melbourne Airport. You've been selected for a non-invasive, random explosives test. I will use a small electronic device to scan your body, searching for any concealed explosives. In the event that you do not comply, you will be taken to a private room and subjected to more invasive testing. Do you agree to comply?"

Joe gulped nervously. "Ah, sure. What do I have to do?"

"Step to the side and spread your legs," Officer Night instructed. Joe obeyed, and he ran the small scanner over his body. Frank tried not to laugh, as the officer waved the scanner between his brother's legs.

Satisfied that the scan had not uncovered anything, Officer Night turned to Joe. "Thank you for your compliance, sir. Have a pleasant afternoon." He moved on, searching the crowd for his next test-subject.

"What did I do to deserve that?" Joe exclaimed angrily.

"I told you to chill out, Joe. He probably thought you were acting suspiciously by glancing around and fidgeting so much," Frank replied.

"I hate Melbourne," Joe muttered. "This city stole my dignity."

This time, Frank couldn't contain his laughter, and even Joe started to see the funny side of the situation too.

* * *

Two hours later, Frank and Joe were eating a late lunch at small cafe nearby their hotel. Frank was eating a meat pie and Joe was working his way through a hamburger and chips.

"You should have gotten something more 'Australian', Joe. You can have hamburgers anytime back home," Frank said.

"This one is kind of different though," Joe replied. "It's got beetroot and pineapple on it! It's pretty good though." He licked one of his stained, purple fingers.

"Chet will be so jealous," Frank said.

Joe glanced around. The cafe was fairly quiet, since it was now almost four in the afternoon. "So, do you want to show me what this case is about?" he asked.

"Ok, sure." Frank pulled a case brief out of his backpack. He took out some documents and placed them on the table in front of Joe. He glanced at Joe's stained fingers and sighed, as he moved the documents further away from his brother. "On second thought, I'll just tell you about it."

Joe swallowed a huge mouthful of burger. "Go for it," he said.

"Have you ever heard of the Melbourne Cup?" Frank asked.

Joe shook his head. "Is it some kind of fancy glass? Don't tell me that we came all this way to protect a piece of glassware. Is it at least cursed or really, really expensive?"

Frank laughed. "Nope, it's much better than that. The Melbourne Cup is the richest and most prestigious two-mile horse race in the world. The total prize money available is over six million dollars. It's held on the first Tuesday of each November, which is next week."

"Six million dollars for once race?" Joe exclaimed. "That's insane!"

"Yeah, it is, so you can imagine that there's a lot at stake here," Frank continued. "We've been asked to come here by a man called Teddy McEvoy. He's the owner of several prominent racehorses, including one called Arcadia, the favourite to win the Melbourne Cup. Arcadia came second in last year's race and Teddy believes that he has improved a lot since then and is more than capable of winning this year."

"So what's the problem then?" Joe inquired.

"Teddy has become suspicious that someone is trying to injure Arcadia and put him out of contention for next week's race," Frank explained.

"What makes him think that?" asked Joe, as he put down his hamburger and listened intently to what Frank was saying.

"Well, when Teddy arrived at Arcadia's stable to check on him a week ago, he saw that Arcadia was limping. He checked one of his front feet out, and saw that the nails had come loose on his shoe. Initially, Teddy didn't think much of it and just assumed that Arcadia had thrown a shoe loose, but then he noticed that the nails on every other shoe had been loosened too. According to Teddy, the chances of that happening accidentally are very unlikely.

Joe nodded. "Yeah, you could imagine one horse shoe becoming loose, but not four at the same time."

"There's more," Frank said. "Two days after that, a stable hand was taking the horses out to hose them down, and she noticed blood on Arcadia's chest. She searched the stable and found that there were several nails hammered into the front of the stable. Arcadia must have brushed up against them during the night and cut his chest open."

"Again with the nails," Joe mused. "Maybe the person who shoes Arcadia is responsible for these incidents for some reason?"

"A good thought, Joe," replied Frank. "But the next incident had nothing to do with nails. After the second 'mishap', Teddy decided to move Arcadia to a more secure facility. The first night that he was there, there were no more dangerous occurrences. However, on the second night that he was there, our saboteur struck again. Teddy came in that morning and found traces of a white powder in Arcadia's food. Arcadia appeared lethargic, but not seriously ill. Teddy called the police and they analysed the powder, but the toxicology report couldn't determine what it was. A vet took a sample of Arcadia's blood, but there were no traces of any substances in his blood."

"This is so strange, why would anyone want to hurt an innocent horse?" Joe wondered.

"That's exactly what we need to find out," Frank said with determination.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Frank cracked open an eyelid as sun streamed into the hotel room. He rubbed his bleary eyes and groaned as he felt the hard edge of a chair digging into his neck. He struggled to sit up and tried to tame his unruly brown hair with one hand.

"Only a shower is going to fix that mess," Joe remarked sarcastically.

Frank let out a small yelp. "Geeze Joe, you scared me half to death!"

Joe laughed. "I was wondering when you were going to wake up. You fell asleep on the sofa last night; you were completely out to it. I thought about waking you up and getting to move into the bedroom, but then I remembered how charming your mood was last time I woke you up."

"Thanks a lot," Frank muttered. He glanced over at his brother for the first time, and saw that he was sitting at the kitchen table. Joe looked completely refreshed and was dressed in a pair of khaki cargo pants and a fitted black shirt. His hair was still damp from an earlier shower, and was casually brushed back.

"Aw come on Frank, I'm not all bad. I DID buy you a coffee and breakfast when I was out earlier on." Joe handed his brother a still-warm takeaway cup of coffee and a small brown paper bag.

Frank took the items appreciatively. "Thanks a lot Joe, but since when did you start getting up early? Usually I have to drag you out of bed."

"I couldn't really sleep," Joe confessed. "Admittedly I did get a lot more sleep than you did on the plane."

"What time is it anyway?" Frank asked.

"7:49am," Joe replied cheerfully. "Oh you know what?" he continued excitedly.

"What?" Frank said suspiciously.

"When I was down in the hotel foyer earlier, they had lots of different tourist brochures suggesting things that we can do while we're in Melbourne. I figured we could go and see something before we meet up with Teddy this afternoon."

"That's a great idea Joe, what did you have in mind?" inquired Frank.

"Well, I had a bit of time this morning and I've been through quite a lot of them, and I thought we could start by checking out the Melbourne Zoo. I've always wanted to see some of the native Australian animals like kangaroos and koalas."

Frank smiled. "That sounds perfect, and not too exhausting. I was worried that you were going to suggest something like sky diving."

"Hmm, no. We'd have to get up much earlier for that," Joe replied seriously.

Frank just rolled his eyes. "The zoo sounds fine, Joe."

* * *

Just after nine o'clock, Frank and Joe arrived at Melbourne Zoo after catching the tram from the city centre. They paid their entrance fees and Frank picked up a copy of a visitor's map and guide.

"What do you need that for? You don't need to plan every move we make, Frank. Can't we just run around and look at whatever we want?"Joe said with exasperation. Sometimes his brother was too organised for his own good.

"Well, we could, but I thought you might like to know what you're looking at," Frank patiently explained.

"I think that's going to pretty obvious when we see the animals," Joe responded. He ran to the nearest exhibit and peered at the animal inside. A small, hairy brown creature stared back at him from a log.

"So tell me about this animal," Frank said with a smirk.

Joe paused for a moment, not willing to concede that he didn't have a clue what the animal was. "It's... it's an Australian log-bear," he replied confidently. "They're native to the east-coast of Australia and they're an endangered species."

Frank burst out laughing. "Just admit that you have no idea, Joe!"

"Ok, ok... maybe it's a good idea that you got that map and brochure after all," Joe admitted. He started to laugh too. "You have to give me credit though, that was pretty convincing!"

"Extremely convincing," Frank replied dryly. He looked at his tourist information brochure for a moment. "This animal is actually a wombat. They're Australian marsupials and they're usually about one-metre in size. There are three kinds of wombats found in Australia: the Common Wombat, the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat and the Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat. This one is a Northern-Hairy nosed wombat and it's an endangered species."

"It's kind of cute," Joe said. "Fat, but cute."

"Wombats can weigh up to 35kgs," Frank explained. "They usually eat a diet consisting of grass, bark and roots. They have a slow metabolism, but this helps them to survive in difficult conditions when necessary. They're often quite lazy unless directly under threat."

Joe took out his digital camera and zoomed in on the animal. He captured the image and then checked to see how it turned out. "Awesome, I can't wait to show Chet the animal version of himself!" he said with a laugh.

Frank grinned. "Just don't tell him that!"

The two brothers walked over to the koala enclosure. "Wow, these are so awesome," Frank breathed. "They're a little bigger than I imagined them to be."

"Oh look! That one has a baby on its back!" Joe cried excitedly.

"Joey," Frank replied.

Joe rolled his eyes. "Don't call me that, I'm too old for that nickname. I'm not even doing anything bad either, I'm just excited."

Frank smothered a laugh at his brother's indignation. "No, JOE, a baby koala is called a 'joey'.

"Oh right, I knew that," Joe replied, his face turning slightly pink. "What else does your guide say about koalas?"

"Koalas usually have thick, grey fur and their closest living relative is actually the wombat," Frank explained. "They often spend sixteen-eighteen hours a day sleeping, and they eat a diet that consists predominantly of eucalyptus leaves. Other than primates, koalas are one of the only mammals to have fingerprints. Their fingerprints are actually similar to human prints." Frank paused. "That's so cool!"

"Yeah, it is!" Joe said. "Too bad we didn't bring our kit with us, we could have taken a koala fingerprint and analysed it."

Frank laughed. "Hey look, it says we can get our photos taken holding a koala. Do you want to?"

"Do you even have to ask?" Joe replied. "Of course I do!"

Frank and Joe lined up in a small queue, and shortly they were at the front of the line. A young wildlife officer came over and greeted them. She had deep green eyes and long brown hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. "Hi guys, my name is Angela and I'm going to be taking your photos today. I'm going to take one of you together and then individual shots of you both with a koala. When you're holding the koala, you need to wear this protective guard over your arm, to prevent him from scratching your arm. Don't do anything to harm or intimidate the animal, as koalas are very flighty animals and they can become scared easily. Is that ok?" she asked with a bright smile.

Joe gave her an equally dazzling smile back. "No problem at all," he replied. "Do you think you could take my photo with Angela too?" he whispered to Frank.

"Vanessa might not be too impressed when she sees your holiday photos," Frank replied.

"Good point," Joe said.

Angela set up the camera and handed the young male koala to Frank to hold. Joe placed his hand on the koala's soft back, and Angela snapped the shot. "Really cute guys, you look great!" she called.

Frank blushed. "Ok guys, let's do the next shot," Angela said, as she walked over to the brothers. "What are your names?" she asked.

"I'm Frank and this is Joe," Frank replied.

"You have such a cute accent," Angela replied, and gave him a little wink. Frank blushed even further and Joe tried not to laugh. His brother was so awkward around girls, especially cute ones. "Ok, we're going to do the individual shots now, so let's start with you, Frank."

Angela set up the shot, and placed the koala in a different position. Frank felt the animals claws gripping tightly into his arm, but it wasn't painful thanks to the arm guard. "Ok, three, two, one...," Angela called, and snapped the shot. She scrutinised it closely. "You're really photogenic, Frank. Have you ever tried modelling?"

"Uh, no, the thought's never crossed my mind," Frank stammered. He could see Joe was almost about to explode with laughter.

"I think you'd be a natural," Angela replied. "I take photos every day, and not many people look as good as you do."

Joe had finally gotten himself under control and he couldn't resist the opportunity to tease his brother. "I've tried to get him into modelling before," he said to Angela innocently. "Maybe he'll listen to you."

Frank shot Joe a death stare, which he chose to ignore. This was too much fun!

"Well, it's something you should definitely consider," Angela said, as she took the koala from Frank. She touched his arm lightly, feeling his toned muscles. "You definitely have the physique for it too," she teased.

Frank didn't think it was possible to turn anymore red. "Thanks," he muttered with embarrassment. "I think it's Joe's turn for a photo," he said, desperately trying to change the topic.

Angela reluctantly let Frank's arm go and turned to Joe. "Ok Joe, let's get you set up." Frank walked over to the side of the enclosure to watch from a safe distance. Joe watched him, not sure if he was trying to keep safe from the koala or Angela.

"Does your bother have a girlfriend?" Angela asked Joe.

"No, he's single at the moment," Joe replied with a glint in his eyes. This was just getting better and better. Frank could see Angela and Joe talking, but he had no idea what they were saying.

"Excellent," Angela smiled. "How long are you in town for? I'd love to take you guys out and show you around the city one night."

"That would be great, we'll be here for about another ten days," Joe said.

"I'll give you my number after this, and you guys can give me a call when you've got a free night," Angela suggested. Joe nodded. "Ok, let's get your photo done," she continued. She arranged the koala and walked back to the camera to take Joe's picture. Just as she was about to snap the shot, Joe let out a horrible moan. Angela snapped the shot, capturing the horrified expression on his face perfectly. She rushed over.

"What's wrong?" she asked?

"I think it peed on me," Joe said with a grimace. "I smell like eucalyptus!"

Frank had seen what had happened and he burst into laughter. "We're so keeping that photo!" he cried. "Can I see it?"

Angela took the koala from Joe. The damp stain spreading across the front of his pants confirmed his worst fears. Angela started to laugh, and Joe soon joined in. She put the koala back in it's enclosure and brought back the photo to show the boys. Joe's face was twisted into an expression of shock.

"The perfect holiday memory!" she giggled. "Do you want me to take another one?"

Joe smiled. "I don't think I want to risk this happening again. That photo will be fine!"

Frank smirked. He definitely believed in karma now.

"Oh, before I forget..." Angela took out a small notebook and a pen. She scribbled her name and number on it and then handed it to Frank. "Call me sometime; I can't wait to show you the sights." She walked away from the boys, leaving Frank stunned.

"Wow Frank, you certainly made an impression," Joe said, punching his brother lightly on the arm. "Oh, sorry!" he exclaimed, not sounding sorry at all. "I don't want to injure your perfect physique."

Frank rolled his eyes. "How is it that you're the one covered in pee, and you're still making fun of me?"


End file.
